Kathryn's Inbox

View this post on Instagram Finally! A store that still accepts Bankcard 😜 #centralmarket #adelaide #southaustralia #bankcard #shitadelaide A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathrynsinbox) on Jan 10, 2019 at 11:38pm PST

Adelaide has long held the reputation of being the murder capital of Australia. And while this reputation may largely be based on urban myths, what is true of Adelaide is that it is home to some of the most unusual crimes that the nation (and perhaps the world,) has ever seen. It's also home to so many secrets and suppression orders, often to the point of ridiculousness. In fact, there is barely a person living in South Australia who knows of the true and less than savoury reason that the states founder, Edward Gibbon Wakefield was in jail in the first place.  In City of Evil Adelaide based court reporter Sean Fewster documents some of the strangest crimes that have occurred in contemporary Adelaide and South Australia--from the gruesome slaughter of a transgender truck driver whose partial remains were found in a strawberry patch (and it's strange connection to another ghastly and unrelated crime,) to various crimes with unusual motives. There is an animal welfare cas...

At the Wolf's Table is a well written and captivating story of survival under the darkest of circumstances. The year is 1943. Certain that someone wants to poison him, Adolph Hitler conscripts ten women to be his official food tasters. These women will be served whatever food is to be served to Hilter that. Under the watch SS officers, these women will then have to wait an hour to see if they will die. It's a cruel act of torture, particularly when food and other resources are so scarce. One of the women is Rosa Sauer, a twenty-six year old from Berlin. With her parents now deceased and her husband away fighting in the war, she has been forced to move to a small village in East Prussia with her in-laws. The locals don't like her and it is for that reason, perhaps, that she is one of the chosen ones. After all, it's easier to place someone you don't know in a dangerous situation than it is someone that has grown up in the town. As the days go on, the dynamics be...

View this post on Instagram Bought the Phantom 2018 Christmas special today. That artwork cracks me up. Also thrilled to see it's in colour #phantomcomics #thephantom #comics #comicbooks A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathrynsinbox) on Dec 20, 2018 at 1:26am PST

Who would have thought that back in 2006 when the first novel of the Baby-Sitters Club series was re-imagined as a graphic novel that it would prove so successful that BSC Graphix has become an entire series and the publisher is now up to book number six. As devotees of the series know, this is the book where things started to change for the members of the club. With the original, it's probably the point where author Ann M Martin and her publisher, Scholastic, realised that they had a hit on their hands, and the potential to create a much longer series, with the stories alternating between the characters. And what better character to return to than Kristy, who had started the club, and unlike the others whose problems had largely been resolved, had a number of life changes ahead of her, with her mother about to remarry Watson Brewer, her millionaire boss. In the original series, it's a great turning point. As far as the graphic novel goes, it works on one level, and...

I think we can all relate to this on a Friday morning!

Willowdean Dickson is perfectly comfortable in her own skin, despite being of the slightly larger persuasion. That said, a few things have happened in her life recently that have shaken her self-confidence. First, her beloved aunt Lucy passed away. She and her best friend Ellen are slowly drifting apart. And there's a very attractive boy at her work who seems to like her, but doesn't seem to want to be her boyfriend. Things need to change. And to kick off that change, Willowdean is going to enter the local beauty pageant. Soon she--and a group of very unlikely contenders--are on their way to prove that they are just as worthy of the crown as anyone. This was an entertaining read, written by the author of the brilliant Ramona Blue . Willowdean is portrayed as a very normal teenager who has her own doubts, fears and misconceptions of others that often influence her behaviour and not always for the better. In other words, she's human and that made her very easy to iden...

Imagine just what you could create--and how much time you could spend creating--if you let go of your self doubt about your creative works. That's the core message of F ind Your Creative Mojo , an entertaining yet no-nonsense guide to mastering the creative process. Using short chapters, bullet points and plenty of his famous The Frog and the Wall comics, author Josh Langley simplifies the creative process and encourages readers and potential creative people to stop worrying about being perfect and to start creating. This was an enjoyable and useful guide, and one that is worthy of creative people at any stage of their career.  Recommended. Thank you to Josh Langley for my reading copy of Find Your Creative Mojo. This book was read as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 2019

Keiko Furukura is a little well ... odd. At school and university she had difficulty fitting in with her peers but eventually she found sanctuary in the most unlikely place, working at a convenience store. In this predictable, normalised environment, she feels safe Eighteen years later, and she's still working there. Now aged thirty-six, she is single and has no interest in finding a husband or a better job. As far as her family and her friends (who all want to cure her,) are concerned, this just wont do. But when Keiko finally decides to take action, the results are darkly hilarious and reveal more than a few deeper truths about the place of women in contemporary Japanese society. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this one. Anyone who has worked in any retail environment, particular in areas with a high turnover of staff, will be able to easily identify with the training and procedures that Keiko embraces, while having a little chuckle along the way. Keiko isn't a c...

View this post on Instagram Spotted in King William Street #passionfruit #stickerart #sticker #streetart #kingwilliamstreet #adelaide #southaustralia A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathrynsinbox) on Jan 13, 2019 at 12:59am PST

Pow! Bam! Welcome to Go Graphic a new semi-regular feature on the blog. In these posts, I'll be talking all things related to some of our favourite comics and graphic novels. Kicking off this week is a review of Hot in the City ... When DC came up with the New 52 back in 2011, their masterstroke was to re-invent Harley Quinn, the unhinged girlfriend of the joker, taking her out of Gotham City and placing her in Coney Island. After a former patient leaves her his apartment block in his will, Harley gathers up all her worldly goods on the back of her motorcycle and travels to Coney Island where she begins making new friends and establishes a new career on the local Roller Derby scene. But trouble awaits when she discovers that someone has taken a hit out on her ... and it might just take her friend and occasional lover (it's complicated) Poison Ivy to help her sort it all out. Hot in the City is a graphic novel which contains several early issues of the New 52 Harley ...

It's not every day that I get to review a book written by my own brother on this blog, though, admittedly, it probably won't be the last time I do this, seeing as one, I have more than one brother and two, the one who had this one published probably has another one in the works. So, forgive me if this review is a little biased. Captain Doobie is a long-term unemployed twenty-something who has big dreams and ambitions, but can never quite be bothered getting off his bum to do anything about them. Along with his best mate, Goodtime Slim, they share a house in the outer southern suburbs of Adelaide. Things are all going well, until one day, Goodtime Slim finds them some cash-in-hand work driving a suped up Lada that belongs to a very well, unusual man, from Adelaide to Melbourne. Along the way, they fall foul of nearly everyone they pass, from the Milk Police (who are not impressed that they've been stealing crates from Chakraborty's Deli,) to the Centrelink employ...

Book three of The Dark Artifices Series starts out on a sombre note, following the death of a beloved character and member of the Blackthorn family. A death must be avenged, but that may prove difficult, given the new and hostile Inquisitor who wants Emma and Julian out of the way. And, of course, the parabati curse and their forbidden love is causing it's own share of drama. Meanwhile, back at the Los Angeles Institute, Ty is dabbling in dark magic in a bid to bring his sister back. And then there is the disease that is slowly destroying every warlock, including Magnus Bane. Suffice to say, there is going to be a whole lot of drama, darkness, magic, Seelie Court shenanigans and sacrifice before this one ends. I found Queen of Air and Darkness to be an entertaining read, though the first two hundred pages or so are a little slow going, and the novel as a whole feels overlong. The subplot featuring Ty and Kit probably would have made a solid, single volume novel of its...

Hi all, a fabulous treat on the blog for you today, an interview with the brilliant, award winning author Amber Lee Dodd, whose novel Lightning Chase Me Home was released this week.  Hi Amber, thank you so much for stopping by Kathryn’s Inbox. Congratulations on the publication of  Lightning Chase Me Home . In your own words, can you tell us a little about the novel and your journey toward publication? I started writing Lightning Chase Me Home just before We Are Giants my debut came out. But it grew from a small idea bout a girl searching for her mum who was named after two great explorers, to something much more magical after a trip to Scotland. I was lucky enough to get to stay in a Scottish castle just outside Edinburgh for a writer in residence post. There I fell in love with the landscape and myth and magic of the place and Lightning became something bigger and much wilder. Lightning Chase Me Home Is a story about wild Scottish magic, old myths and g...

Once again, I'm proud to be joining the Aussie Author Challenge for another year. I've actually lost count of how many times I've done this challenge, but as it's one of my favourites, I'm thrilled to be back. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the challenge, it's intention is to showcase as many Australian books and authors as possible. And because this is a challenge--and not a competition--there are three different levels and participants are free to choose the one that suits them. Once again, I'll be going for Kangaroo, but I'll be cheering you on no matter which level you choose. And no, you don't have to be Australian to participate, you just have to love (or at least read,) Australian books. The challenge is hosted by the brilliant Book Lover Book Reviews site and you can sign up here.